Only 6.4% of members of a pro-wage theft business group in Wisconsin support wage theft legislation

Scott Manley, an official with the right-wing, pro-wage theft business group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, claimed in a public hearing held by a Wisconsin State Senate committee that 300 of the WMC’s 3,800 members responded to some sort of inquiry by the group as to whether or not they support right-to-work-for-less legislation, also known as wage theft legislation, and that 81% of them support the legislation.

81% of 300 members in a group that has 3,800 total members is, rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent, only 6.4% of the total membership of the group. Yes, you’re reading that correctly…only 6.4% of the total membership of the main right-wing business organization in Wisconsin support the Wisconsin Republicans’ wage theft bill.

In case you’re wondering how I came up with that figure, I didn’t pull it out of my rear end. Instead, I made two calculations with Windows Calculator:

• 0.81*300 = 243, meaning that 81% of 300 is 243.
• 243/3800 = 0.0639473684210526, meaning that 243 of 3,800 is 6.4%, when converted to a percentage and rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent.

To put that another way, one of the largest organizations that is pushing the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Legislature to allow non-union workers to effectively steal wages and other benefits negotiated by a labor union without paying for those benefits in the form of union dues or fair-share fees with support from only 6.4% of its members. This is not lost on many Wisconsinites, in fact, Lori Compas, the executive director of the Wisconsin Business Alliance (WBA), the main progressive business organization in Wisconsin, called local chambers of commerce in seven Wisconsin State Senate districts that are represented by Republican state senators, the 1st (Frank Lasee), 2nd (Robert Cowles), 10th (Sheila Harsdorf), 11th (Stephen Nass, who ended the public hearing early over rumors that an Hispanic group in Wisconsin was going to exercise the group’s First Amendment right to free speech in a public place), 13th (Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald), 23rd (Terry Moulton), and 29th (Jerry Petrowski, currently the only Republican state senator who intends to vote against the wage theft bill), and Compas could not find a single local chamber of commerce in those seven Wisconsin State Senate districts that was publicly willing to support the Wisconsin wage theft bill. Compas’s piece on her findings, which she published to the WBA’s website, is a fine example of investigative journalism. In fact, Compas’s piece has been republished in full by Steve Hanson of the progressive blog Uppity Wisconsin and featured in an online article published by the Milwaukee-area alternative newspaper Shepherd Express.

Let me make this point 100% clear: Very few people and groups in the Wisconsin business community are advocating for wages to be driven down and unions to be busted, in fact, it appears to me that the only individuals and groups in the Wisconsin business community that are advocating for wages to be driven down and unions to be busted are those individuals and groups who have a considerable amount of political influence over the Republicans that control Wisconsin’s state government.

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Legendary progressive activist Lori Compas considering running for Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairperson

Looks like the race for Chairperson of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin could get very interesting.

You may remember Lori Compas, a professional photographer from Fort Atkinson in Jefferson County who became a legendary figure in Wisconsin politics by attempting to recall Republican Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald in 2012. Well, I don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up, but I have it from a reputable source that Compas, who is currently the executive director of the Wisconsin Business Alliance, a progressive business organization in Wisconsin, is, in fact, considering running for the state chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and that she’ll think about whether or not to run over the weekend. I have not been authorized to disclose my source.

Compas is considering running run on a platform of making the party’s operations more transparent, reducing the DPW chair’s annual salary, articulating a positive, progressive vision for the DPW, and running a true statewide strategy.

If Lori Compas runs for DPW chair and progressives get control of most of the delegate slots at the 2015 DPW Convention, she could very well end up being the favorite for state party chair, as all of the other candidates who are either running or considering running are establishment political figures, whereas Compas would clearly be the progressive candidate for DPW chair. Additionally, if Compas were to run, I will endorse her candidacy. While I’m a lifelong resident of a neighboring state, Lori is a nice, caring, intelligent person who is passionate about Wisconsin progressive values and is one of the most brilliant political activists I’ve ever heard about. I think she’d be a fantastic leader for a state Democratic Party organization that badly needs a different kind of leadership at a time where Wisconsin could end up deciding control of the White House and the U.S. Senate.